My Misadventures With a Whisky-Drinking Sanghi in Gujarat

Senior journalist Revati Laul’s (mis)adventures with a whiskey-drinking Ayurvedic doctor in ‘dry’ Gujarat.

(Photo: Harsh Sahani/ The Quint)

Politics tends to be drab or depressing unless it’s topped up with a cheap glass or two, gulped down and guaranteed to sock you between the eyes. Or at least that is what *Dr Rajesh Dave believes and practises strongly with a few friends, all members of the Sangh Parivar.

I first met Dr Dave at his Ayurveda clinic in the old part of Ahmedabad city, where derelict shanties, like the one where he practised, stink of wet garbage and industrial waste.

Dr Rajesh Dave’s kitchen-sized clinic contained an average-sized brown desk with a shiny sunmica top. Hanging directly above was a big, brightly-lit poster of Lord Vishnu.

Ayurvedic Doc’s Claim to Fame? DP With Modi!

By way of medicines, there was a tin box on his desk containing a few strips of paracetamol and digestive tablets for the patients that turned up with pet-kharab (stomach-upset) or bukhaar (fever), for which either of these two pills could be prescribed.

But mostly I saw people come in to hear him talk. And see Dr Dave’s Facebook profile picture, where he was standing next to Narendra Modi. Even though that was two decades ago, when both had black hair, it was still a high-value display piece.

It would be easy to conclude that the proud Ayurveda doctor was at the top of his game. He had spent 25 years in the Hindu institutions that mattered most in the state of Gujarat. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or the international wing of the Hindu right and its political affiliate — the BJP.

Until he took me on a temple tour and we stopped for a ‘whiskey lunch’. I had said I wanted to know more about his experiences as a Hindu leader in a Hindu-ised space.

He said we could talk more while he showed me an ancient Hindu temple that was a two-hour drive away from Ahmedabad. I understood why. He needed for me to travel some distance and put some faith in him for him to return the favour and trust me with his story.

He needed for his friends in the VHP to accompany us on this trip to assess me and see if it was okay to talk. There had been sting operations done undercover by other journalists – my colleagues in fact – and Dr Dave was scared. He didn’t want to be caught on tape saying the wrong thing and lose a lifetime of political clout gained painstakingly. There was a lot at stake in this meal. I said I wasn’t taping our conversation. He wasn’t sure what to believe.

Have a Drink On Me

As soon as we got to the site of the temple, Dr Dave was quick to point out the sculptures of devis and devatas in various positions of ecstasy. I nodded, knowing exactly what he was getting at. That religion was cool, even though he guessed I wasn’t buying much of it.

Too busy to read? Listen to it instead.

Plus, he felt like flirting a bit. It was time for lunch and we drove in his white Tata Indica car to a bird sanctuary in the area. The staff waiting at the entrance sprung to action as soon as they saw Dr Dave with his trademark black walrus moustache.

A white plastic table materialised magically, and chairs were brought for all of us — the doctor plus his five friends, one of whose wife had accompanied us on the trip. And me.

The wife brought out a big thermocol ice box, and from it a bottle of cheap whiskey, ice and some bottles of soda. This was proof if any was needed of Dr Dave’s clout. In a state where liquor was prohibited, not only was he drinking it outdoors in the afternoon, but he was doing it in a government-protected bird sanctuary.

“Lo madam (Take, Madam),” he said proudly. Only to be supremely disappointed. I announced that I drank everything under the sun except whiskey. “Thoda sa na, kuch nahi hota madam, just one sip na (Please drink just a little, just one sip; nothing is going to happen),” he pleaded.

His friends pleaded. I did not relent. Food arrived. It was both veg and non-veg, in keeping with the display of power and aspiration. Chicken curry, bhindi subzi, tandoori rotis and Thumbs Up for me and the non-drinking wife.

The staff that brought the food and plates were employees of the sanctuary and they trained their eyes on the food and away from the illegally procured and openly consumed liquor. But the embarrassment for them, if any, didn’t last long. In a few gulps per person, the bottle was emptied.

Saffron Doctor’s Escapades

It was time for Dr Dave to get down to the real stuff. Make a full and lasting impression on his guest – me.

Out came a slew of stories about his various acts of bravado as a proud Hindu vigilante, tearing Muslim men away from their Hindu lovers.

“I walked into a court room once and kidnapped a girl and her lover,” he said, eyes red with whiskey and pride. “Why?” I asked.

“Because I felt like it,” he said, aware of the effect of his words. His friend interjected helpfully. "Wohi Hindu-Muslim ka maamla hoga madam." (It must’ve been that old Hindu-Muslim problem, madam.)

“I stripped her lover naked and beat him up because I wanted to,” Dave rounded off. He went on to some more bragging, from the time he pitched in to the Ayodhya movement and the destruction of the Babri masjid that had taken place in Uttar Pradesh in 1992.

“I have broken free from jail in UP. I was in there for the Ayodhya issue. Ask about the chaddiwala doctor, and they will tell you what a ‘cheez’ I am. I broke free from jail and then burnt an effigy of the chief minister,” Dave declared.

Chicken done, conversation done, the table was cleared. It was time to leave. I had spent a few years in Gujarat and had begun to de-code the bragging I had just witnessed. That it was a sign of discomfort, of not having arrived at the promised place. Of having acquired some money and muscle power but not enough, never enough to be ahead of an impudent English-speaker like me.

Those who bragged were perhaps those who were the least secure about their place under a saffron sun. As we drove back to Ahmedabad, cruising along the large, well maintained highway, Dr Dave said in a much lower pitch than when he was bragging, “I wasted twenty-five years of my life in the Sangh Parivar – the Hindu right.”

He was tired of the chest thumping and gesticulating, the pretense of it all. But he was implicated in one of Gujarat’s biggest riot cases going back to the anti-Muslim violence of the year 2002. He needed that Facebook profile picture with Modi and he was hoping he could use it to cash-in on all the years spent tearing Hindu girls away from Muslim lovers. He hoped it would keep him from serving time in jail.

Saffron Brigade: Just a Bunch of Fair-Weather Friends

The following year, when the court passed a ‘guilty’ verdict, Dave went to jail, albeit, briefly. He was out on bail soon enough and met me over another meal. The choice of venue in Ahmedabad was interesting. I had let him pick the spot. He chose the Amdavad-ni-Gufa – a series of caves painted on the inside by the artist MF Hussain.

A Muslim man and the best known contemporary Indian artist around the world, who had to spend the last years of his life in Doha and London because Hindu vigilante groups attacked galleries where his work on Indian goddesses in the nude had allegedly incensed them. Yet, this is where the VHP Hindutva leader Dr Dave wanted us to meet.

The gufa (cave) was in the university area in Ahmedabad, a trendy part of town populated by students in gunjees (vests) and tank tops.

The outdoor Zen café served us smoothies and pastries that he did not like. We chatted about his brief stint in jail. He looked at me and asked, “Can you get me a decent lawyer, Revati behn?” I was my most uncharitable self. “Go ask your saffron friends. Where have they all disappeared?” I taunted him.

But the answer was clear. The saffron wave had delivered a clear majority for the BJP in six successive elections and now there was nothing more for it to give its voters. There was even less to give to troublesome party loyalists with difficult cases on their backs. Narendra Modi wasn’t going to come out and protect Dr Dave. He would have to fend for himself.

The Gujarat That Isn’t

In the larger universe radiating out from Dr Dave and his clinic, discontent within the rank and file of the Sangh was growing. Many within the VHP and BJP openly cursed their party and Modi. But in a thoroughly saffronised state, where even the Congress was doing its best to be as Sangh-like as possible, there was no place for the discontent to go. Despite that, in the state election in December 2017, the BJP’s numbers went down.

And in all the rural areas, the vote was overwhelmingly against the party. In the end though, the BJP still had the larger numbers. So there was only this other space for anger to go — the two-faced space. Dvaita in Hindu mythology.

A very useful tool and something of a default setting with growing numbers of Sanghis in the state. Dr Dave’s double-speak was his only catharsis. A highly inorganic but home grown dawa-daru that was a good gauge of the way things were. Or rather, the way they were not.

*Name changed to protect identity

(Revati Laul is an independent journalist and filmmaker based in Delhi. She tweets @revatilaul. This is a personal account. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)